A Note on the “Explosion” and “Netting” Problems in the Planning of Materials Requirements

The “explosion” problem is the problem of determining the required components from knowledge of demand for finished products. The “netting” problem is the problem of determining the net requirements of these components, for purposes of production or procurement from outside the firm, based on available inventory. This paper presents a simple algorithm which yields the “netted explosion.” The algorithm is suitable for digital computation in case of large inventories.